Spike handed over the jewels. The boss was the boss, and what he said went. But his demeanor was tragic, telling eloquently of hopes blighted.

Jimmy took the necklace with something of a thrill. He was a connoisseur of jewels, and a fine gem affected him much as a fine picture affects the artistic. He ran the diamonds through his fingers, then scrutinized them again, more closely this time.

Spike watched him with a slight return of hope. It seemed to him that the boss was wavering. Perhaps, now that he had actually handled the jewels, he would find it impossible to give them up. To Spike, a diamond necklace of cunning workmanship was merely the equivalent of so many "plunks"; but he knew that there were men, otherwise sane, who valued a jewel for its own sake.

"It's a boid of a necklace, boss," he murmured, encouragingly.

"It is," said Jimmy; "in its way, I've never seen anything much better. Sir Thomas will be glad to have it back."

"Den, you're goin' to put it back, boss?"

"I am," said Jimmy. "I'll do it just before the theatricals. There should be a chance, then. There's one good thing. This afternoon's affair will have cleared the air of sleuth-hounds a little."

CHAPTER XXIII

FAMILY JARS

Hildebrand Spencer Poynt de Burgh John Hannasyde Coombe-Crombie, twelfth Earl of Dreever, was feeling like a toad under the harrow.

He read the letter again, but a second perusal made it no better.

Very briefly and clearly, Molly had broken off the engagement. She "thought it best." She was "afraid it could make neither of us happy." All very true, thought his lordship miserably. His sentiments to a T. At the proper time, he would have liked nothing better. But why seize for this declaration the precise moment when he was intending, on the strength of the engagement, to separate his uncle from twenty pounds? That was what rankled. That Molly could have no knowledge of his sad condition did not occur to him. He had a sort of feeling that she ought to have known by instinct. Nature, as has been pointed out, had equipped Hildebrand Spencer Poynt de Burgh with one of those cheap-subst.i.tute minds. What pa.s.sed for brain in him was to genuine gray matter as just-as-good imitation coffee is to real Mocha. In moments of emotion and mental stress, consequently, his reasoning, like Spike's, was apt to be in a cla.s.s of its own.

He read the letter for the third time, and a gentle perspiration began to form on his forehead. This was awful. The presumable jubilation of Katie, the penniless ripper of the Savoy, when he should present himself to her a free man, did not enter into the mental picture that was unfolding before him. She was too remote.

Between him and her lay the fearsome figure of Sir Thomas, rampant, filling the entire horizon. Nor is this to be wondered at. There was probably a brief s.p.a.ce during which Perseus, concentrating his gaze upon the monster, did not see Andromeda; and a knight of the Middle Ages, jousting in the Gentlemen's Singles for a smile from his lady, rarely allowed the thought of that smile to occupy his whole mind at the moment when his boiler-plated antagonist was descending upon him in the wake of a sharp spear.

So with Spennie Dreever. Bright eyes might shine for him when all was over, but in the meantime what seemed to him more important was that bulging eyes would glare.

If only this had happened later--even a day later! The reckless impulsiveness of the modern girl had undone him. How was he to pay Hargate the money? Hargate must be paid. That was certain. No other course was possible. Lord Dreever's was not one of those natures that fret restlessly under debt. During his early career at college, he had endeared himself to the local tradesmen by the magnitude of the liabilities he had contracted with them. It was not the being in debt that he minded. It was the consequences. Hargate, he felt instinctively, was of a revengeful nature. He had given Hargate twenty pounds' worth of snubbing, and the latter had presented the bills. If it were not paid, things would happen. Hargate and he were members of the same club, and a member of a club who loses money at cards to a fellow member, and fails to settle up, does not make himself popular with the committee.

He must get the money. There was no avoiding that conclusion. But how?

Financially, his lordship was like a fallen country with a glorious history. There had been a time, during his first two years at college, when he had reveled in the luxury of a handsome allowance.

This was the golden age, when Sir Thomas Blunt, being, so to speak, new to the job, and feeling that, having reached the best circles, he must live up to them, had scattered largesse lavishly. For two years after his marriage with Lady Julia, he had maintained this admirable standard, crushing his natural parsimony. He had regarded the money so spent as capital sunk in an investment. By the end of the second year, he had found his feet, and began to look about him for ways of retrenchment. His lordship's allowance was an obvious way. He had not to wait long for an excuse for annihilating it.

There is a game called poker, at which a man without much control over his features may exceed the limits of the handsomest allowance.

His lordship's face during a game of poker was like the surface of some quiet pond, ruffled by every breeze. The blank despair of his expression when he held bad cards made bluffing expensive. The honest joy that bubbled over in his eyes when his hand was good acted as an efficient danger-signal to his grateful opponents. Two weeks of poker had led to his writing to his uncle a distressed, but confident, request for more funds; and the avuncular foot had come down with a joyous bang. Taking his stand on the evils of gambling, Sir Thomas had changed the conditions of the money-market for his nephew with a thoroughness that effectually prevented the possibility of the youth's being again caught by the fascinations of poker. The allowance vanished absolutely; and in its place there came into being an arrangement. By this, his lordship was to have whatever money he wished, but he must ask for it, and state why it was needed. If the request were reasonable, the cash would be forthcoming; if preposterous, it would not. The flaw in the scheme, from his lordship's point of view, was the difference of opinion that can exist in the minds of two men as to what the words reasonable and preposterous may be taken to mean.

Twenty pounds, for instance, would, in the lexicon of Sir Thomas Blunt, be perfectly reasonable for the current expenses of a man engaged to Molly McEachern, but preposterous for one to whom she had declined to remain engaged. It is these subtle shades of meaning that make the English language so full of pitfalls for the foreigner.

So engrossed was his lordship in his meditations that a voice spoke at his elbow ere he became aware of Sir Thomas himself, standing by his side.

"Well, Spennie, my boy," said the knight. "Time to dress for dinner, I think. Eh? Eh?"

He was plainly in high good humor. The thought of the distinguished company he was to entertain that night had changed him temporarily, as with some wave of a fairy wand, into a thing of joviality and benevolence. One could almost hear the milk of human kindness gurgling and splashing within him. The irony of fate! Tonight, such was his mood, a dutiful nephew could have come and felt in his pockets and helped himself--if circ.u.mstances had been different. Oh, woman, woman, how you bar us from paradise!

His lordship gurgled a wordless reply, thrusting the fateful letter hastily into his pocket. He would break the news anon. Soon--not yet--later on--in fact, anon!

"Up in your part, my boy?" continued Sir Thomas. "You mustn't spoil the play by forgetting your lines. That wouldn't do!"

His eye was caught by the envelope that Spennie had dropped. A momentary lapse from the jovial and benevolent was the result. His fussy little soul abhorred small untidinesses.

"Dear me," he said, stooping, "I wish people would not drop paper about the house. I cannot endure a litter." He spoke as if somebody had been playing hare-and-hounds, and scattering the scent on the stairs. This sort of thing sometimes made him regret the old days.

In Blunt's Stores, Rule Sixty-seven imposed a fine of half-a-crown on employees convicted of paper-dropping.

"I--" began his lordship.

"Why"--Sir Thomas straightened himself--"it's addressed to you."

"I was just going to pick it up. It's--er--there was a note in it."

Sir Thomas gazed at the envelope again. Joviality and benevolence resumed their thrones.

"And in a feminine handwriting," he chuckled. He eyed the limp peer almost roguishly. "I see, I see," he said. "Very charming, quite delightful! Girls must have their little romance! I suppose you two young people are exchanging love-letters all day. Delightful, quite delightful! Don't look as if you were ashamed of it, my boy! I like it. I think it's charming."

Undoubtedly, this was the opening. Beyond a question, his lordship should have said at this point:

"Uncle, I cannot tell a lie. I cannot even allow myself to see you laboring under a delusion which a word from me can remove. The contents of this note are not what you suppose. They run as follows--"

What he did say was:

"Uncle, can you let me have twenty pounds?"

Those were his amazing words. They slipped out. He could not stop them.

Sir Thomas was taken aback for an instant, but not seriously. He started, as might a man who, stroking a cat, receives a sudden, but trifling scratch.

"Twenty pounds, eh?" he said, reflectively.

Then, the milk of human kindness swept over displeasure like a tidal wave. This was a night for rich gifts to the deserving.

"Why, certainly, my boy, certainly. Do you want it at once?"

His lordship replied that he did, please; and he had seldom said anything more fervently.

"Well, well. We'll see what we can do. Come with me."

He led the way to his dressing-room. Like nearly all the rooms at the castle, it was large. One wall was completely hidden by the curtain behind which Spike had taken refuge that afternoon.

Sir Thomas went to the dressing-table, and unlocked a small drawer.

"Twenty, you said? Five, ten, fifteen--here you are, my boy."

Lord Dreever muttered his thanks. Sir Thomas accepted the guttural acknowledgment with a friendly pat on the shoulder.

"I like a little touch like that," he said.

His lordship looked startled.